Pandora's Box
by CTF
Summary: Magus does everything to reunite with his sister, even if that reunion isn't quite real... In Chapter Three, Schala finds the new waking world extremely odd, and violence stirs from her desire to find Magus.
1. Dimension Gates And Riftwaves

First I must give a disclaimer, folks. Chrono Trigger is property of Nintendo. All its characters and related figures are also Nintendo-owned, including Magus and Schala. There are also several characters and concepts that are my property. Unless given permission, you may not use or steal Cole, the Time Entity, the Omni, the Galaxy Theory, Dimension Gates, or Riftwaves for your own purposes. Any and all content related to these things are also mine. This story is related PG for some intense sections and themes as well as occasional foul language or referencing to foul language. On a story-based addition, while the primary focus is around the story of Magus and Schala, Chrono Trigger characters, a good deal of it takes place in the setting of Final Fantasy IV. This does not make it Final Fantasy IV writing, though. In addition, the nearer I get to the end, the more the story begins to focus on Cole and his purpose. It is in the Chrono Trigger category because it predominantly revolves around the story of two Chrono Trigger characters, but do not expect this to remain in the main Chrono Trigger setting or theme. Enjoy, folks!  
  
PROLOGUE  
  
Once, a long, long, time ago, when the galaxy began and all the universes were created (for unlike what Earth-dwelling humans believe, they live in a universe called the Milky Way that is part of a grand galaxy), there was a juvenile lady named Pandora. She was given a very secure box and forbidden to open it. However, inevitably, she did. She unleashed all the evil that exists now, in our hearts and in our minds, but she also left something untainted in the wake of her insurrection: hope.  
  
Hope has split often and taken many forms, but the predominant concern of this tale is an offspring of hope known simply as Cole. With unlimited godly powers, Cole watches over many universes that are part of a region of the galaxy known as "Squaresoft." However, Cole is somewhat of a newborn as far as the other Omnipotent Ones are concerned. Therefore, before Cole can be left to fly solo, he must undergo trial and tribulation...  
  
...It has been said that sorrow is a fate worse than death. Wallowing in its eternal trap of torment and anguish is the most efficient method of annihilating one's soul. Magus of Zeal on the planet labeled "Earth of Chrono Trigger" once contemplated this prospect as he stood resolutely motionless, his mournful gaze riveted upon the horizon in pursuit for his beloved sibling, Schala...  
  
As Magus settled his feet, inadvertently grinding his heavy boots into the immobile stone cape, the remnants of life on the forsaken surface of the cliff seemed to diminish the longer he remained there. The disheveled growth of moss and foreign weed was bizzarely foreboding to him, the magnificent sorcerer of the shadows. Sunbeams fell in successive waves, stealing the fiery fervor and luminescence of the gaseous entity away into the opaque night. A fatally sharp slice to his marrow and the familiar billowing of his majestic cloak advised him of the approaching gusts. His head drooped even further, his silvery periwinkle hair flowing in strands down with it.  
  
He didn't have the pertness to shake his head as he sighed, "Alas, dear sister, I have lost you again." The keen toes of his boots poked beneath a particular patch of slime before he launched it aloft with a flick of his ankle, catching it solemnly in the palm of his right gauntlet. His fist tightened around the bundle, until his muscles quaked and he could clench no more. He apathetically flung the moss into the sea below; he was tormenting his mentality the more he remained still in lamentation. He enclosed himself suddenly in his cloak, as if embracing himself for comfort. His lips barely moved as he muttered to himself, "I will not give up. I will seek you out until the end of time stops my beating heart!" His voice escalated in crescendo until it trailed away into the humid oceanic air. "It's no use," he realized, and as he was beginning to turn and abandon his wishes, something else quite familiar to him seized his attention all too swiftly.  
  
Magus caught the sound of a raucous voice on the wind calling his own name. "Magus!" The mage whirled around in a blazing tornado. Upon recognition of his caller, he had no other speech to discharge besides, "What the h-"  
  
CHAPTER ONE: DIMENSION GATES AND RIFTWAVES  
  
As Magus attended to his own intruder, the subject of his sorrow was in fact materializing precisely where he had proclaimed his hunt would end to interrupt another's nap...  
  
The snores of Gaspar, the Guru of Time, were anything but unobtrusive to the platform he stood on as he rested intensely, his bowler dipping over his eyes snuggly, his spine curling smoothly for the greater part against the lamppost in the middle of the square stone structure, and his hands resting cupped around each other on his faithful cane. Not even the gate portal slowly expanding directly over him interrupted his respite. However, he jolted at the dull thud that ensued, drowsily unlocking his eyelids from an extended overdue dose of sleep. He had no faith in what he perceived next.  
  
Before him hunched a slim figure. An eloquent gown shrouded the form, yet the aging Guru recognized even the attire. The material glistened in the ginger illumination from the lamppost poised above Gaspar's head, giving the lavender fabric a heavenly aura-which was ironic, considering this woman just made such an entrance. "No," he thought. "I'm hallucinating. This is an apparition taunting my mind's eye. I must still be sleeping..." His arm's nervous response, however, demonstrated for him that he was conscious. "It just can't be. It is impossible. I felt her ebb from the time-stream-"  
  
The woman quivered unexpectedly, interrupting Gaspar's disbelief. Straining frailly to move, she raised her head to examine her location, still oblivious of her colleague behind her. When the periwinkle strands protruding from her scalp were visible in their shining radiance, Gaspar was sure. He almost disturbed his stature when a few muffled moans of aching seeped from her lips, but he resolved to monitor her next actions a while longer.  
  
The woman recognized this site, but a pulsation resounding inside her temples precluded remembrance of what it was. In fact, she could not retrieve any memories for a few moments of recuperation. Except for the pebble surface that she sat on, everything was... nothingness. If it were not for a dim emission of luminosity originating behind her, she was confident she would not be able to sense anything here with her eyes. Her legs trembled waywardly as she pressured them to impart an endeavor to stand up, but she managed to balance herself. Her arm moved as if through a vacuum to her forehead, caressing it tenderly to alleviate the pain as she murmured to herself:  
  
"Where am I?"  
  
Gaspar could not detain his vocal cords; he answered the woman's question quite out loud with a veritable point. "I would say your question should be more to the tune of when you are, Miss Schala." He avowed he would later hammer himself contesting Spekkio for that.  
  
Schala went rigid. Her muscles seized up and her heart omitted several palpitations as her breath eluded her. She was convinced, now, of where she was and to whom that voice belonged. She didn't move to confirm her assumptions as she attempted to verify them vocally.  
  
"Gaspar? Is that you?"  
  
Even in the End of Time, Gaspar's time for critical decision was over, and he was granted no option away from negation of the facts. "Ehm? No, miss. I'm afraid you have the wrong person." He disconnected one hand from its post on his cane on to jerk his cap down, straining to linger unrecognized. He was not intended to intervene in exterior affairs from his position outside of time as the Guru of Time, but he would soon be reminded of Schala's ingenious diligence in achieving what she desired.  
  
The Zealian princess smirked. She recalled this murky milieu lucidly now, and she had Gaspar ensnared in a trap. She feigned a thwarted sigh, groaning in deceitful frustration, "I guess I'll just be returning, then. There's nothing for me in this abysmal void." As she falsely fussed, she began to move closer to the cluster of shimmering spectacles she recognized as Time Gates that seized her vision to her left.  
  
Gaspar lost power over his body, and in a spasm caused by severe trepidation, he darted quickly to impede her motion, dropping his bowler and cane and crying in alarmed panic, "No, Miss Schala! Wait! Stop!"  
  
"Gaspar!" she exclaimed, being suddenly overcome by bawling of elation at finding a friend at the End of Time. She bounded towards him, nearly toppling his ancient body to the bitter mineral floor in her broad embrace.  
  
Gaspar could not help but chuckle in his own ecstasy for a bit. He muttered drolly, "Miss Smart-Alec Know-It-All."  
  
Schala gingerly forced distance between them, holding him only somewhat distantly by the shoulders as she asked playfully through her mirth, "What was that now?"  
  
Gaspar cast his arms around her again for a moment, giving her a genial slap on the back. "Nothing, Miss Schala, nothing," he chortled. He unwillingly liberated her from his hold. "Now, how in the world did you end up here, of all places?" he questioned quite sternly.  
  
Schala made a gesture upwards with her finger as she retorted, "I fell from up th-"  
  
Gaspar quickly interrupted her, yanking her hand back down and shaking his head as if she was being so absentminded on purpose. "No, I mean... from when did you come?"  
  
As Schala spoke, Gaspar moved about her and started back towards the lamppost to retrieve his cap and cane. Schala had to mull over for a moment before replying with her own somewhat muddled tale. "A Time Gate... I remember Janus using my pendant and chanting the Tongue of Shadow in the Mammon Machine room, and-oh, wait, I must start earlier." She began to pace now, furrowing her brow a bit as if trying to understand for the first time what the progression of events really had been as she conveyed it to Gaspar. "The prophet that mother so hastily trusted called me for a private conference. He was fidgeting abnormally, and then... Then he told me he was Janus! I nearly slapped him, until he took off his cloak. The resemblance was unnerving, and then he began talking about Time Gates... and something about my pendant being a key. Then I realized, despite how impossible, he was Janus-come back from his own future!  
  
"He told me about some omen-the black wind, I think it was. He told me about something terrible that was soon to come, but... I can't remember. I began to get a splitting headache after I realized he was genuine, and... I'm sorry. I just can't remember. Maybe if I get some rest-"  
  
Gaspar shook his head, his bowler now back in place as he resumed his orthodox position propped up by his cane. "No need to worry about that, Miss Schala. I've heard enough to understand what I needed to know. You were paradoxed, it seems-but don't worry. Just forget about it all right now. It's just nice to be able to rest assured that one of you is-"  
  
"One of me? What do you-"  
  
"-safe. Don't worry about it, Miss Schala! Now, I have a story to tell to you. Look closely at that Time Gate from whence you came."  
  
Schala complied, and craned her neck upwards to examine that lustrous point in the sky-or what was equivalent to a sky, there in the End of Time. It took her a few minutes to detect what was wrong about this particular Time Gate, compared to the others she had just seen as well as the appearance of the portal in 12,000 B.C. This Time Gate emitted a silvery gleam in contrast to the regular eerie blue.  
  
"Wha-" Schala began to inquire.  
  
Gaspar abruptly interrupted her, knowing already what she would ask. "This is not a Time Gate. Although you entered a Time Gate, it opened something here that I have come to call a Dimension Gate. Several mishaps have deposited many people here before, and in each case they came from a mysterious silver gate that appeared over my head. Then, later, they vanished from the timeline. I could no longer detect them from here, even though it is the acme of observation."  
  
"What does that mean? Where did they go?"  
  
"Gates transport one from one spot on the eternal continuum to another. If they did not move up or down on the time spectrum-"  
  
"They must have moved on the space continuum!" Schala gasped.  
  
"Exactly," Gaspar confirmed her assumptions with a simple nod.  
  
"Why do you not call it a Space Gate, though?"  
  
"It's quite simple. While there are only two plains to the eternal continuum, if the gate just moved someone across space, they'd end up elsewhere in the endless vastness of this timeless state, yet it doesn't. Therefore, it must take them to another sort of existence-across a barrier in space that we cannot pass."  
  
"A dimension?"  
  
Gaspar concurred solemnly. "And because it is impassable, I'm afraid we can never hope to see those poor people again. Unless-no, that's not important right now."  
  
"All right. So, then, I just have to take another Time Gate when I'm ready to leave. I remember Janus saying something about a time period in which he grew up, even though I think it's odd because he's growing up right now where I just left. A.D. 600, I think it was."  
  
"If you feel you must go, then I bid you farewell, Miss Schala," Gaspar heaved a sigh remorsefully. He couldn't keep her absent from all time, he knew, no matter how critically he yearned for it. "Just be careful of something for me, please?"  
  
Schala agreed courteously, "Of course, Gaspar. I would do anything for you."  
  
"Those travelers did not disappear because they re-entered the Dimension Gate. Something else took them away. I call it a Riftwave. Once a random chance causes it to open instead of a normal Time Gate, the Dimension Gate will emit these Riftwaves for a bit until it closes and remains dormant again for a while. They are what carry people across space and between dimensions. Since the Riftwaves can carry one anywhere in space, they spread and cover the whole of the space continuum. However, because they transfer space, they would have to exist outside of time. As I am sure you have already guessed, anything that exists outside of time, like this End of Time, covers all time."  
  
"I see," Schala half-feigned, hesitating a moment before she realized that she did understand most of Gaspar's speech. "You just want me to be careful not to be caught up in a Riftwave wherever I travel to."  
  
"Very good," Gaspar said, delighted that someone else understood the mechanics of the space-time continuum at least a little bit. His mood quickly shifted, and he shed a silent tear in the shade of his cap. "Good bye now, Miss Schala, and be careful."  
  
"Thank you, Gaspar," Schala said, enfolding him in her arms once more and kissing him appreciatively on the cheek. She bowed to go, then halted, and inquired one concluding question. "Gaspar, just so I know what to be careful of, what do these Riftwaves look like?"  
  
Gaspar chuckled. "I almost forgot! Well, they look simply like-"  
  
Before he could finish this, there was an impossibly brilliant white burst of daylight as a loud ker-thwap resonated from the Dimension Gate. It transpired too suddenly for Gaspar to wail or presage Schala. A visible distortion refracted all light and absence thereof as it flushed out promptly in a circular pattern from the gate, and the next moment, Schala was no longer standing there.  
  
Gaspar looked up, but not at the Dimension Gate. He was looking for something supernatural that may not have even been there. He murmured a silent prayer to his own supernatural savior for his lost friend and the little girl he and the other Gurus had always thought of like they were her godfathers. "Lady Time, please guide Miss Schala, wherever she is, so that time may be fortunate to her." Little did he know how much this would be taken to an omnipotent heart. 


	2. Ambiguous Prophecies

CHAPTER TWO: AMBIGUOUS PROPHECIES  
  
Schala opened her eyes. She felt they had been closed for an eternity, particularly because what she observed now she had never perceived from such a breathtaking vantage. She stood on a lone cape protruding fair into the sea, watching the land of her own indigenous era from the Earthbound territory. She gazed out upon the shimmering sea. The reflection of the sun that never shone comfortably high in the floating islands of Zeal was brilliant, illuminating the sky and waves. However, something was not quite right... She peered carefully into the unfathomable depths once more, carefully examining until-Schala gasped, although not even she could hear herself, but she didn't pay attention to what she could hear as she instead watched the ominous gleam intensify until the seas parted, unleashing an eruption of red light for a few moments until it dwindled to a single beam. The bloody ray appeared small off in the distance, but its terrible disturbance in the sea hinted to its true colossal size. It fired upward into the sky, blasting its way through the clouds. As the white parted, she could faintly see land aloft...  
  
It was targeting Zeal.  
  
She anticipated what would happen next with trepidation, and surely enough, the first boulder soon fell from the land above, plummeting blindly into the ocean. Soon, the shards of the magical Kingdom of Zeal began to increase in size as they fell to the mysterious onslaught from the waters.  
  
This was not a new revelation, Schala soon realized. The Janus from the future had already told her of Zeal's end. In fact, that is why he insisted that she fled, why he would not allow her to remain in this time period. And now, had she just returned to witness it despite Janus's efforts, to observe with horror as the world crumbled-with her in its midst?  
  
Her thoughts unexpectedly froze as she felt something grasp her shoulder tightly. Firstly, it felt impeccably bitter, and she froze partially because of its cool touch. After that brief moment, it spread warmth through her body. It was a familiar sensation that she'd had in vicinity not long ago, yet it took time for her to recognize the now-distant source. She slowly rotated, feeling the unknown pressing harsher into her skin. She could now feel that it was a hand, and as she turned, her suspicions were confirmed. It was the prophet, Janus wearing the gothic violet cloak to remain unidentified in this time, but she could not see his face.  
  
Janus spoke, his voice deep and discordant to the howling wind... the black wind? His words were slow and faint, yet they were unwavering and formidable in strength. "Schala... I'm sorry that you have become lost to me."  
  
Schala sighed in relief, pitying Janus for his sorry. She attempted to comfort him. "Janus, it's not your fault. You don't have to-"  
  
Janus continued to speak, but the next words she heard brought a new fear into her thoughts. "Time can no longer help you. At least, not I, in my domain." Schala remained speechless. She couldn't willfully move. "Oh, but there is one waiting for you. She will guide you. She will guide you to Him, Schala. Go to Him. He is direly requiring your pendant. Without it, the universe will fail. If you do not present the Pendant to Him, it will collapse. Time will be threatened, but if you give Him the Pendant, He will be able to lay low the beastly sorrow."  
  
The cloaked one stopped for a moment, curiously examining the disappointed- and somewhat frightened-countenance that was slowly forming on Schala. A shadowed hand outstretched towards her face and stroked her cheek gingerly, inquiring, "What is wrong, maiden Schala? Your mood is sub-orthodox." Schala reached out to grabbed an arm beneath the cloak, opening her mouth to speak, but as she contacted the ambiguous harbinger, it spoke her mind before she could. "Ah, I see. Why has fate befallen you for this? Fate is a curious spectacle without doubt. However, when opportunities arise, it reacts. I guess you could write it off as being in the right space-stream at the right time." Quite peculiarly for such a solemn speaker, the form quavered slightly as a small chuckle escape the shadows of the cloak's hood.  
  
The laughter stopped abruptly as the thing that Schala could only now describe as a true person pointed on long arm over her shoulder. Schala turned, facing the ruins of Zeal as the last rubble disrupted the sea. Something was growing and rushing rapidly on the horizon... A tidal wave- headed for the shore!  
  
The speaker's voice made a sudden drop in pitch, causing it to bring a more terrifying feeling than ever after it had gone through a crescendo up until it giggled as a young girl. Schala felt the wind from before pick up its pace, chilling her further as the speaker sternly commanded, "Go now, Schala, and meet your-"  
  
"Schala!"  
  
Schala didn't even see the harbinger turn before it was facing down the cliff at the intruder. Schala herself managed a glance before her legs crippled and she fell, hunched over, to her knees. She frantically massaged her temples, pounding as they were, trying to get rid of this strange new ripple of pain in her mind. All she could do, however, was to listen as Magus confronted the supposed prophet.  
  
Magus observed in horror as a terrible aura seemingly connected to the mysterious cloaked forerunner loomed over his sister, forcing her to bow with its might. He began dashing up the cape, yelling angrily, "No! What are you doing to her? Get away from my sister!"  
  
This seemed to amuse the cloaked person, as the next thing Schala heard was an impossibly low cackle drowning out her brother's rising battle cry. Magus charged furiously, not heeding as a hand went forth, resolute in halting him. The eerie laughter, quite a change from the girlish giggles a few moments ago, ceased abruptly. At the same time, the hand waved apathetically to the side, and an invisible force cast a cursing Magus over the side of the cape.  
  
Schala found a sudden relief in her mind as the harbinger spoke to her again, urging the point. "Schala, you must bring Him the Pendant without fail." The voice did not switch, but its tone revolved instantly as it continued, "Is there something wrong?"  
  
Schala did not reply. Even though the cause was gone, her skull was still inflamed. All she could do now was to weep in agony.  
  
In fact, she would have hardly noticed as something impacted the back of the cloaked one, sending it sprawling over Schala's hunched form and hurtling it into the sea; she wouldn't have been aware, that is, if Magus hadn't called quite cockily, "I'm not gone yet, you stupid b-" His next words were muffled by an whoosh of magic and a small explosion. Magus slowly hauled himself over the cliff, still containing the sphere of energy for another Dark Bomb spell within his palm. He scurried quickly to Schala's side, kneeling beside her. Schala let herself go, no longer supporting her own weight and instead propping herself in Magus's awaiting arm-span. She had an utter lack of strength now, as if the threads of life remaining in her were extended as daintily as possible. Swooning in her little brother's stalwart grasp, she opened her eyes. "Janus," she whispered, "I'm glad you're here."  
  
"It's all right," he whispered, putting a finger to her lips. "Preserve to persevere, sister. Hush now; there is no need to speak." He sighed, looking out to sea. The torrent was still imminent, but it seemed as though it had momentarily stopped. Time was standing still for them as they lay together, spending a tranquil moment for what seemed the first time in a perpetual period.  
  
It was a dozen minutes before Schala broke the silence. Shifting her head to meet Magus's eyes, she asked hopefully, "Janus, this is real, isn't it? I have returned here from the End of Time, haven't I?"  
  
Janus sighed, and already Schala was in disdain. Janus offered the answer she did not wish for. "No, I'm afraid not, Schala. We are only able to meet now, across barriers of time and space, through the black wind..."  
  
"The black wind? I thought that was just your naïve childhood call for prophecy."  
  
"It was, but the reason I identified my prophetic feelings remains the same. Visions come to me through a chilling wind. It cuts through my bone, but I'm the only one who ever feels it."  
  
"That's not true," Schala thought, perplexed for a moment. "I felt it just before your arrival."  
  
"That could be; once I entered subconsciousness, I traveled the plane of thoughts by the black wind to find you here." Schala did not acknowledge this or show that she understood, regardless of the fact that she did. After a much briefer silence, Magus spoke again. "Sister. some day, I will find you, wherever you may be." He paused, but Schala did not reply to this either. "With the black wind to guide me, and your pendant longing to return to its mistress, I-"  
  
"My pendant?" Schala interrupted. She recalled the mysterious figure who had spoken to her not long ago, even though it seemed far in the past now. "What are you doing with my pendant?"  
  
Magus stroked her long, periwinkle hair casually, acting as though she were an absent-minded juvenile. "Sister, don't you remember? I used it to access the energies of Lavos through the Mammon Machine. I used them to open a Gate for you to escape through. I told you I would return it some day."  
  
Schala became engrossed in her own contemplations at this point. She first thought of the mysterious harbinger of a prophet, who spoke of a "Him." Who was He, and how would she know? An even bigger problem was her lack of the Pendant to give to Him, if she could identify Him. And then there was Janus; she desperately desired to be in his company and his embrace again, but how would that ever be possible? If she was truly lost in the plane of thought somewhere in another dimension, how could they ever hope to reunite, particularly if he did not know about the Dimension Gate and the Riftwaves before it was too late?  
  
Then she realized: With the Time Gates, it would never be too late. She didn't waste time. She hastily spoke. "Janus, listen to me. If you want to find me, you must go to the End of Time immediately. Leave this plane and depart at once. Talk to Gaspar, there. You remember Gaspar, do you not?" She paused, and scolded herself, thinking even swifter, "That's not important, Schala!" She gazed upward into Janus's waiting eyes again. "He'll tell you about the Dimension Gate and the Riftwaves. You have to be precise. If you do not get caught in the correct Riftwave, I should not hope to wonder where else you might be whisked off. Now, go, fast!" She pushed him away, as if to give him a start.  
  
Magus immediately rose, but suddenly found his legs inoperative. The instant he heard the depth of the almost infrasonic voice behind him, he had a reason in his mind. He moved slowly, as did Schala, to find the cloak swirling about the figure as it hovered high above the sea. Shadowed energy crackled about the cloaked one. Magus had no other thought than a half- frightened statement of the obvious: "It's pissed."  
  
"Schala of Zeal, you are in no place to tell another to make haste!" the alleged prophet exclaimed as its aura of power illuminated the black fabric more brightly the more intense the sound emanating from it became. "I have given you revelation, and it is now your fate! GO! You, Magus of Zeal, you have challenged Time itself. I am no mere sorcerer, one for cheap tricks and blasphemous tales! Do not meddle in my affairs. I can destroy you. Incurring my wrath could easily be bringing you to cease to exist and be erased from time itself! Leave this plane! You have no business here any longer. Schala has a new path set before her. Besides, chasing after a paradox is futile! You have done enough, and you are lucky that you are integral to that which will unfold at the turn of a century, or you and your sorcery would be long beyond my patience!"  
  
The longer that which identified itself now as Time spoke, the fiercer the energy became. Bolts projected from Time, crushing rock and soil to exchange them for rubble, narrowly evaded contact with Schala and Magus. All the while, Magus had been undergoing his most powerful incantation, and as he now targeted Time with his potent Dark Matter spell, he was suspended in mid-air without any motion from the cloaked entity. In an unpredictable motion of volatility, Time raced at Magus. The collision caused an eruption of dark energy to flow in all directions, one bolt striking Schala and crippling her once again to her knees. There was an ebony haze about Time and Magus now, and Schala heard a gushing of water behind her. Glancing only for a moment behind her, Schala fell fully against the surface stone cape.  
  
Schala whispered a taciturn prayer to herself foregoing the surge of salt water that enveloped her, becoming the last thing she observed before her senses failed her and she left the subconscious for unconsciousness. 


	3. A Foreign Dimension

(Author's Note: I'm incredibly sorry it has been so long since I last updated this. I just couldn't seem to write it, and it wasn't exactly writer's block-at least not the kind I usually have-since I had the ideas, but I couldn't be satisfied with how it came out in words for the longest time. That added to an accumulation of distractions and obligations elsewhere accounts for the long wait. I hope to get on with the next chapter sooner, seeing as how the idea is burning and won't go away.)  
  
CHAPTER THREE: A FOREIGN DIMENSION  
  
Schala was uncertain how long had passed before she reclaimed her senses. The mattress beneath her was a harsh mistress, and even with the radiance of a wax candle on the wooden nightstand beside her, it was a few long minutes before she could see properly again. There were many petite figures huddling all about her that were revealed only as shadows as they whispered in strange tongues. It took time for her to figure out that the only "foreign" languages were those of common pigs and toads.  
  
She bolted upright quickly, but hooves and webbed fingers as well as tiny human hands wrestled her back against the stiff bed. There came the wholehearted chuckle of a hearty rich voice from the darkness that almost terrified Schala with its bold depth and timing. Then a man with shaggy brown hair all over his face stepped forth, and shook his head. Little pigs, tiny toads, and small men-not children, but miniature men-were clumped around his legs like young children beside a tale-telling father.  
  
The bearded man spoke. His voice was rugged, but Schala could tell it was an honest one and she obeyed its command. "Now, now, lassie, I'd calm down if I were you. You just had a bit of a bump on the noggin after appearing in mid-air, that's all." He smirked at himself, and continued with his sarcasm. "You've only been knocked out for a few right days now, nothing to worry about, eh?" He stopped laughing and pressed her gently against the two pillows, which strangely felt soft and inviting in the man's presence. His smiled died and he gave up the jokes as he suggested, "Seriously, girlie, I think you might ought to recuperate yourself a bit before you go jumping all about."  
  
She settled down and immediately the light pressure of his abnormally hairy hands lifted from her shoulders. She shifted her glance uneasily about the room once more, sighing heavily, as she was still feeling quite perplexed. "Will you-can you tell me where exactly this is?" she finally asked, rather timidly considering how relatively small her audience was.  
  
The rugged mountain man smiled again, replying without delay as if Schala were a nutcase, "Why, you're resting in the basement of the tavern here in good ruddy old Mithril Village! Where else did you think you'd be with a place like this around you?" A few of the midget creatures around him nodded in agreement.  
  
Schala blinked, dejected at this. She was still clueless, so she repeated, "Yes, but can you please tell me where that-here-is? What world is this?"  
  
The man blinked too. He was beginning to get a bit muddled at this point, and scrunched his face up as such. "I just told you, didn't I? You're in Mithril Village, at the blinking inn. Er-in-well, this planet." He scratched his head profoundly at this, striving to reach the scalp beneath his bulky mane of raggedy brown. He hesitated slightly before continuing. "Listen, miss. I think I know someone back at Baron who might be willing and able to answer for you the way you want it. New arrival, too, he is. Why don't you save all this confounding codswallop for him, eh? Agreed on that much?"  
  
Schala simply nodded, continuing to scrounge about in the dark, as if somewhere through that piercing ebony shroud she might see Gaspar and his lamp-lit platform off in the distance. So far she had not prevailed at this game.  
  
"All right, then," the man confirmed. "My name's Cid, just so you know. Call me if you need anything; I've got some repairs to be getting about to before we can shove ourselves off this crowded hole of an island." He paused as if to remember what else to say to Schala. "The natives here should be bringing you grub and drink every now and then, don't worry about that. So, ahem-bye then." With that, Cid turned to vanish in the unseen.  
  
Before he could leave for she didn't know how long, Schala called, "My name is Schala."  
  
"Good day, li'l Lady Schala," Cid grunted without straying from his departure. The instant he withdrew from her sight, the peculiar creatures surrounding her retreated as well. Defeated in her purpose, she relaxed in the bed as suitably as possible and rested.  
  
Now and again a midget man, petite pig or tiny toad would prod her for attention and deliver a grand and delicate meal, but she was otherwise deserted to her own pondering solitude. Schala didn't even fret over the time; instead, she endeavored to liberate herself of the world, desiring only to meditate. She ruminated all that had hurtled by her in a mere hour's consciousness-and subconsciousness. She had gained her brother's company and proceeded to have it lifted from her, she met Gaspar and had the opportunity to observe all time only to be flung casually from the familiar realm, and she had crashed in a strange world of sentient animals and child-men.  
  
"What a catastrophe of reality!" she thought. This reverberated seemingly for eternity in her, under finally a new echo intruded the canyon of her mind: What if this weren't reality?  
  
She startled herself with the notion. Momentarily she reminisced of Doreen the Philosopher of Enhasa, and believed this meant she was dreaming-after all, Zeal was the kingdom in which dreams formed reality. She soon dismissed this, however, as the proper translation came to mind. And now Schala understood what the Guru of Time meant by the word paradox.  
  
"I don't exist," she realized. She stammered to explain the logic that must have sparked ridiculousness of the sort, but she discovered nothing. All she comprehended was this.  
  
Inevitably, as they often did, her contemplations reverted to the confrontation with Time at the End of Zeal. But now she grasped more than ever before. She did exist, but she did so only in the sense that it was her purpose to find Him and bring Him the pendant. . .  
  
. . .And to do that, she would have to find Janus.  
  
"But I'm powerless to do so!" she exclaimed audibly before considering that the silent shroud was her sole audience. Still it appeared to reply to her, and charged her with all that she could accomplish single-handedly. She could linger in this world and trust in her brother's vows.  
  
She continued to ponder, "I could locate Him."  
  
Without further mulling, she sprang from her bead with extraordinary vigor, and, snatching the candle from the counter beside her, groped through the frigid shadows for the steps upward to the surface.  
  
For the first time, she stumbled through the ebony mist, challenging its uncertain wrath resolutely. She had fallen upward through the trials of several steps foregoing further enlightenment.  
  
"What senselessness am I spouting?" she wondered. "I exist. . . do I not? I don't n-it's so confounding. . ."  
  
And as Schala puzzled herself, a familiar searing heat intensified in her forehead, and she collapsed on the bitter stone. The brass saucer on which the candle rested collided with the ground and shattered, sending the wax shaft and meager flame sprawling until all radiance flickered out.  
  
***  
  
For the third instance in a miniscule week, Schala departed from unconsciousness with a shock. This was, however, the most severe awakening yet. Schala found herself sputtering and spewing from her swelling lungs. An intolerably pungent sensation-the mark of the sea-congested her lungs and fumed through her nostrils despite her willing strive to purge it.  
  
It was longer before she could make sense of her situation, for whenever she attempted to open them a fresh surge of stinging salt water intruded and turned her vision into a cryptic jumble. But when her sight finally decided to return, she understood that she was now following through with the end of her last journey upon the black wind. She collapsed wearily to the near-barren stone, relaxing upon its sleek soaked surface. The cliff was icy to her skin, but she didn't mind; it helped to relieve her of the perplexing bramble that was her current state of mind.  
  
"Schala," an unexpected gust carried the gruff voice from behind her that startled her so immensely that she nearly jerked backwards off the cape. Swiftly bypassing that shock, she rolled more cautiously about in order to identify the fellow navigator of the subconscious plane.  
  
"Janus!" the Zealian woman cried as her heart lurched elatedly at encountering her beloved brother once again via the mystic wind. Her legs lurched too, vaulting her body into the air and nearly toppling the stout Mage of Shadow in order to embrace him.  
  
Magus, however, didn't shift in the slightest as Schala rested her tired head upon his shoulder, except to repeat almost as if in a trance, "Schala. . ."  
  
Schala recoiled instantly as she detected something amiss with her younger brother. Her head still cocked questioningly, she demanded simply, "Janus, please tell me whatever is the matter." His eyes were still cold and remote, so she continued, "You know you can confide in me; I'm your sister, am I not?"  
  
Magus would not stir. He was intent on watching the horizon creep up on Schala, which she ultimately decided to witness personally. Thus she again perceived in horrifying awe the infantile crimson light rumbling through the water from the Ocean Palace far below.  
  
"This," Magus uttered solemnly, "this is my only purpose: to retrieve my own puny self and only a handful of my cherished from this-this oblivion."  
  
"Janus," Schala said concernedly, "what are you say-"  
  
"Janus was an innocent prophet child," Magus muttered as the beam sliced through the convening clouds. "Janus is far departed. I am the Terrible, the Great Mage of Shadow, the Conquering God of Mystics, and the Apocalypse Summoner... ... ..."  
  
"Magus... ... ..." Schala whispered while boulder-sized debris plunged upon the destruction's origin. She glanced up and found his eyes watering with stiff contempt for himself.  
  
The sorcerer finally lowered his head to meet the relative eyes of that which caused his forlorn quest pleading with him to continue it. Slowly, fluid spilled down her cheeks, and finally, when Magus could no longer bear her tears, he sighed refutably, "No, I give up. We are already defeated. I'm sorry." Horror crept across his face as he muttered to himself, "What have I done?"  
  
"No, Janus!" Schala exclaimed in panic. "We cannot surrender! You can't! I- I need you. I need the pendant... ... ..."  
  
But Magus was once again aloof from her pleas. He riveted his attention upon the looming upsurge of the sea, repeating rhetorically, "What have I done?" The cape began to tremble, and as the clamor flushed nearer, so did Magus's lamentation intensify into a yell. Schala collapsed into a secure huddle on the earth in trepidation as the water surged over her. A barrage of sound enveloped her, but nothing reached her ears better than the howl of the wind... ... ...  
  
***  
  
"Lady Schala-"  
  
"No!"  
  
"-what is wrong?"  
  
Schala's scream gradually died as she realized she had returned to Mithril Village. A concerned native hunched over her with the re-kindled candle repeated, "What is wrong, Schala?"  
  
Still trembling, Schala attempted to rise, but she could only find the drive to stagger before crashing and tumbling down the staircase again. The Inn concierge rushed to assist her despite her shrugging him off with a headstrong attitude.  
  
"But Lady Schala, you-" the midget began, until one of Schala's blindly flapping arm collided with his jaw. She continued to give her best effort in crawling up step by step, leaving her designated caretaker stunned for a moment. She managed to gain quite the height before the concierge latched hold of her leg, an irate glare masking his previously calm face. She thrust her leg backward, catching him across the forehead with her bare foot this time to send him sprawling down the stairs. Several more times they volleyed like this, Schala doing whatever she could to free anything from a leg to both of them to an arm and to her whole torso. Finally, he managed to catch the end of her gown, tugging it resolutely to keep her from advancing forward without it.  
  
He managed to shout, "Miss Schala, stop this at-" over Schala's wailing outcry this time. However, his words were cut short, and not by a flailing limb this time. Instead, the "Shah-bang!" of the subsequent explosion was dynamic enough to have dissipated his next words-not to mention the tragedy of catching the brunt of its wrath. A mauled midget lay lifeless several feet into the main cellar below Schala, who was launched to the top of the stairwell. She steadfastly inched her way ever forward, determined to escape as soon as possible. Not only did she have a mission, but also the screams from above told her there was no one in the village that hadn't heard or received word of the explosion within a few seconds.  
  
Just before she would have edged into its path, the door in front of her swung open brutally, flooding the basement with brilliant light. Schala looked up to see another native's shadow glancing wildly from Schala creeping across the floor to his limpkin's body downstairs. He inhaled dramatically before shouting, "What in the name of all that is evil and unholy in the Underworld happened here? My worker-you-what?"  
  
Schala groaned exaggeratedly, "I-I-ugh." She wondered for a moment what really had happened, and why she had decided to conjure a Dark Bomb. She shook her head to rid herself of the confusion and simply cried, "Leave me alone!" With that, a visible distortion in space consumed the innkeeper wholly.  
  
"Janus," Schala thought as though her brother could hear her, "why do they have to get in the way? Why must they try to stand between us? Do they not know that I have to find you at any cost, lest it grow to late?" She marveled as she continued to snake her way across the inn lobby, leaving the wreckage behind. 


End file.
